The Scars Inside You
by Astrid-Myrna
Summary: For her final test of Jedi training several years later, Rey must travel to the kyber crystal caves of the ice planet Ilum and gather her kyber crystal to power her very own lightsaber. Unfortunately, Kylo Ren has also come to Ilum to capture Rey and brings the two to the mysterious caves and brings out their rawest emotions. (Vol. 2 of "Amare et Odite" triology)
1. Chapter 1

From a shady cliff off of Ach'to, Rey watched the ship carrying Kylo Ren fly off into the blue distance. An invisible weight that had pressing down on her lessened when the ship disappeared, but it had not quite left her. His eyes and his words still chilled her to the core.

 _I came on my own because I love you._

She wanted to believe that he was lying, but there was something about the way he said it—the way he looked _into_ her—that made it feel like the most honest thing he had ever said to anyone, let alone her.

The crumbling of gravel took her mind off her musings.

"Well, he's gone," Luke said.

"Good," Rey said, straining to keep her voice calm.

"I see you're still angry with me."

Rey scooped a handful of pebbles and flicked them over the edge one by one. There was more than just anger welling inside her, but she couldn't put to words what else she was feeling, so she remained silent. Luke sat next to her and folded his hands in his lap.

"You were right," Luke said, and he chuckled when she quickly turned to stare at him. "If Ben wasn't my nephew I most likely would have sent him to Leia before even thinking of training him. Even in my old age, I can still be impulsive. I'm sorry."

"Thank you," she said, and meant it.

"I can trust you to keep me honest from now on."

Rey laughed at that, but her laughter tilted into tears. Luke tried to comfort her and understand where the sudden pain come from, but when she couldn't answer—

"Breathe, Rey," he said. "Breathe, and let it go. Let it all go."

Rey only nodded as she folded her legs and rested her hands on her knees. She closed her eyes and focused on smoothing her short, shuddering breaths into long, deep ones. Inwardly she pulled away from everything—the roar of the sea, the salty breeze on her face, the hard stone beneath her legs. She floated in silence, only aware of the clashing emotions that tore at her heart and bashed against her ribs. In her mind she pruned back these emotions to get at the center of her troubles—

 _She walked down to the stream, two buckets in hand, when a naked man burst from cold water. It took her a moment of looking up and down the black-haired figure to realize she was gawking at Kylo Ren. He was staring out into the distance, not even knowing she was standing right behind him. That was the time to run and save themselves the embarrassment. But her heart danced in her throat and her feet refused to move. She desperately wanted him to turn around so she could see him, all of him. And he did._

 _Whatever spell she was under instantly broke. He stared at her like she betrayed him, and he stammered an excuse for her about the water buckets. She dropped them and ran like a coward. That night he had not joined her and Luke for supper. That night she had terrifying and exhilarating dreams about him and her that left her body sore in the morning when she woke. She feared at first that he had taken advantage of their bond again, but no. No, she could tell her own figment of her imaginations from_ him _. In her dreams, he was as a star that fell from the heavens and embraced her with his fire until her rough body glittered like a diamond. In the waking world, she caught him turning away from her to avoid crossing her path, leaving behind a cold, heavy energy._

 _She couldn't risk mixing up who Kylo Ren was and who she wished Kylo Ren to be. It took three straight nights of deep meditation before sleep and pushing away from him in her dreams for the dreams to stop. She soon slept peacefully again, for the most part. The Kylo Ren of her dreams did not like being starved of attention, and would pop up when she least expected it._

With her eyes still closed, Rey wiped the tears from her hot cheek.

Within a couple of days, more ships had arrived to Ach'to: two smaller carrier ships and a fleet of X-wings. To Rey's delight Poe came out to greet, but the crease in his brow made her pause.

"You need to evacuate," Poe said after he'd given Rey a hug.

"Why?"

"Kylo Ren killed the crew on his transport ship and flew it into First Order territory. It's only a matter of days before the enemy arrives. We're here to take you back to the Resistance."

Rey turned to Luke, whose face had lost what little color it had.

"Right. We must bring the books and tomes with us, follow me."

There was no arguing with the last of the Jedi, and a crew of humans and droids was sent with Luke and Rey up into the beehive-shaped temples. Anger pierced Rey's heart and began to spread throughout her chest. She wanted nothing more than to take one of the X-wings, fly out to the First Order, and kill Kylo Ren herself. One glance from Luke's faded blue eyes stopped her runaway plans.

 _I won't betray you, Master Luke_ , she told him telepathically, and she caught a smile under his wiry beard. It disappeared as Luke handed a stack of cracking scrolls to a young fighter pilot.

When all had been loaded onto the ships, Rey watched the rocky island shrink to the size of a pebble through a dusty window. She wandered the halls until she found Luke in his bedroom, staring at a dent in the wall.

"Are you meditating?" she asked.

"No," he rumbled.

She sat next to him on the hard cot and joined in his staring at the dent in the wall.

"I expected something to happen," Luke finally said. "But I told him it would be all right, because I would be there to help him."

"This isn't your fault, Master Luke."

He shrugged. And then the tears came. Rey hesitantly put a hand on his shoulder, and he patted her hand with a broken smile.

"It'll be all right, Rey," he sniffed. "Something needs to change, though. This can't happen again."

"I don't think he'll come back."

"No, I mean this can't happen to you."

Rey jerked her hand back as if he had slapped her. " _Me?_ You think I would join the dark side?"

Luke pursed his lips for a moment, then continued. "I have been teaching the ways of the Force in the way that I was taught by Master Obi Wan and Master Yoda. And from what I've been reading in the old tomes…Rey, I don't want you to go through the same thing that I went through. I don't want you to teach new Jedi only to have one betray you and kill your students and try to kill you. There is something fundamentally wrong happening here, and the only way to fix it is to revolutionize. Something needs to change, Rey. The Jedi order needs to end."

Rey stared at him in shock, and wasn't sure if asking the question in her mind would sound like she was whining or ungrateful if this was the decision he needed to make, but—

"What about my training, Master Luke?"

"We will finish what we started, Rey, don't worry. I will teach you what I know, and then…we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

After some meditation, Rey went to catch up with Poe about Finn's recovery and the other going's on at the Rebel base. Thankfully, the escort to the base met with little conflict, and Rey and Luke were greeted warmly and with awe. General Organa was the first to embrace Luke, and the pain of Han Solo's loss was palpable.

News soon followed them of the First Order invading Ach'to and completely destroying the first Jedi temple. There was confirmation of Captain Phasma being with the boots on the ground from the couple of scouts left behind, but no word of Kylo Ren. Rey was relieved that they had saved the texts from destruction, but she found a quiet place to grieve for the island that let her grow so much in ways she couldn't have imagined.


	2. Chapter 2

Several years had passed since Rey and Luke left Ach'to. In that time Rey learned to wield Luke's lightsaber with the grace, accuracy, and speed of a hunting bird. With Luke's guidance she learned to keep her cool in battle and not be led by her emotions, but by the Force. Through the texts of the old Jedi order, she learned that she had to let go of her attachments in order to be truly powerful with the Force as a light user. How easy that could have been had she learned this while still living in Jakku! But then she remembered that at that time she still had a firm attachment to her family. Now, she accepted that they would never come looking for her. If she could let them go, then certainly she could let Luke, Leia, Finn, Poe, and even Kylo Ren go.

Embarrassingly, she still nursed her grudge against Kylo Ren over the years. Just the thought of him made her body quiver with rage that had to be tempered down with reminders of his cowardice and weakness. Ever since Ach'to, he had not even tried to test their Force bond, and she didn't dare test it either. There were more important things she had to focus on than him, such as the final test that Luke promised her.

She was currently sweating in an X-wing, wearing the thickest layers of white winter gear that could be fashioned for her, including a thick mask with a wide purple-tinted lens. She leaned against a wall so it could share some of the weight of silver backpack stuffed with survival materials and a miniature forge. The howl of Ilum's winter winds rattled the aircraft, but nothing to worry about yet. The skies were still clear.

Even though Luke had said that the Jedi order needed to end, Luke and Rey decided to follow the old Jedi's way and have her go through the Gathering trials to obtain a kyber crystal. The Gathering was once a test for children escorted by a more experienced Jedi to the crystal caves that lie beneath the Jedi Temple. Once inside, the initiates faced their fears in the strange caves and mined their crystals to be used to power their first and hopefully only lightsabers. Rey's trial would be different. She would walk to the kyber crystal caves on the ice planet Illum by herself—no mount, no droid, no others helping her. Once she had chosen and mined her crystal, she would forge her lightsaber at the Temple before returning to Luke. Her training would be considered complete, and she would no longer be an apprentice, but a Jedi master herself.

There was a series of bumps signaling that they had landed. Poe in his captain's uniform ran up to her and clasped her shoulder.

"You ready?" he said.

"Ready as I'll ever be," she panted.

He gave her a quick hug. "Look, I know this is important to you, but if you run into any trouble, let us know and we'll be there in a flash. Not sure if Finn would be happy being the last Jedi."

Her laugh was cut off by the heart-stopping cold that flooded the ship as the ramp opened. Rey stomped out into the snow and waved goodbye as the X-wing flew off into the bleached sky. She held onto the straps of her heavy backpack and marched towards the dark blue mountains a mile away. As if the mountain had shuddered and wrinkles froze in the surrounding land, there were too many hidden ridges and boulders for most spacecraft to land.

So Rey had to walk in the freezing cold to the Temple, but she tried to cheer herself up by thinking of this loathsome walk as the warm-up to the real test. Rey crunched along, feeling almost at home on the ice planet. There really wasn't much difference between this frozen desert and her childhood nightmare on Jakku, only instead of scavenging for scraps she was—

No.

She turned, lightsaber out and her hair standing up on the back of her neck. The stealth cloak on his long, black-wing ship lifted as it perched on the same landing area the X-fighter had sat in just an hour ago. She took a few angry steps towards the ship, her lightsaber melting the snow under its blue glow, and stopped. She was here for the kyber crystal, not the chance for revenge.

 _This_ was the first part of her test: letting go of her attachment to Kylo Ren.

Rey cursed under her breath as she turned off her light saber and jogged towards the Temple. Under the weight of her backpack and the softening snow, however, her jog was forced to a speedy walk. She could feel him coming, but she kept focus on the goal in front of her.

Invisible hands grabbed at her, but she pivoted and flung them back at the dark figure among the snow. The red glow of his absurdly long lightsaber reflected in his metal mask.

"You'll be coming with me," he growled.

Rey dropped her backpack and turned her lightsaber back on.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," she barked back.

Their sabers clashed, and she pushed him backwards faster and faster until he pushed her back with the Force. Her legs twisted and wobbled as she found her balance. He was on top of her again, thrashing against her quick but light blocks. As he rose his arm for the final blow, Rey threw him back with the Force. Their blades caught each other once more.

"You've improved since those old days at Ach'to," he said.

"Why are you holding back?"

"Because I need you to come back with me alive, and if that means I have to—augh!"

Out of nowhere a massive white icewolf with claws the look and size of icicles raked Kylo Ren's black cloak into ribbons. Another icewolf's jaw aimed for Rey's shoulder, but she swatted it away with her light saber. They were suddenly surrounded by the hulking, hungry beasts. Soon they were back to back, throwing the icewolves back with the Force or impaling them. Snow dotted their bloodied bodies. Rey looked up at the sky, which was now littered with darkening clouds.

"We're going to have to finish this another time," Rey said as she left his side for her backpack.

"We can take shelter in my ship."

She laughed heartily at that as she swung the backpack over her shoulders again. At first she thought the yank on her pack was from Kylo Ren, but it was actually a wolf with its jaws in clamped to her pack. Another wolf popped out from some snow-covered hole and grabbed her arm that made her drop her lightsaber. A third bit at her helmet, but was thrown off from both Rey and Kylo Ren using the Force against it. Kylo Ren slashed at the wolves on her arm and back, but was swarmed by a dozen sleeker and smaller icewolves. Rey grabbed her saber and helped Kylo Ren burn them off one by one, until suddenly the surviving wolves leaped off of him and scurried to their burrows.

Chunks of Kylo Ren's thick, black winter clothing were gone or in tatters. He pressed his gloved hand against his exposed, bleeding abdomen. He took one step towards Rey, and his second step sent him tumbling to the ground.

Rey could feel that he was still alive, even though his body lay motionless in the snow. The cold would kill him or the snowstorm would eventually smother him. Either way, Kylo Ren would die here, and Rey would continue her Gathering trial.

But she couldn't look away from him. Kylo Ren, the man who had murdered so many in the service of the First Order, bleeding out on an isolated ice planet. Once the storm passed, the scavenging wolves would eat his body, giving him a truly fitting end. He had brought this sad fate on to himself. He came here to capture her again, alone, after all.

Luke's lightsaber hummed in her hand.

She turned it off and holstered it. With a heavy sigh that misted up the inside of her mask, she kneeled next to him, grabbed him by the torso, and hoisted him over her shoulders. She stumbled and fell, but picked them both back up again to trudge ever so slowly towards the Temple several hundred feet away.


	3. Chapter 3

_This was a mistake_ , Rey thought.

The wind blew harder against her back and pushed her forward, but would suddenly swirl and make her stumble back. The light dusting of snow from earlier clumped on her ankles and shaggy boots, adding more weight to her walk. The sunlight dimmed and the the snow cover glowed, making her eyes water even with the sunglasses on.

Still, she continued walking with Kylo Ren draped over her shoulders. Once they reached the Temple, she could have him bound and ready for pick up by Poe and his team. The information he had on the First Order would be extremely useful to the Resistance. General Organa would more than likely handle the interrogations best. Master Luke would be pleased about her restraint. Kylo Ren would stand trial, and justice would finally be had. Sparing his life was the right decision to make.

Snow fell in thick clumps, obscuring the Temple. Thunder rolled overhead, and a crack of lightening struck the top of the mountain. Rey tried to march faster and nearly fell forward, so she had to slow down to a walk. A trickle of his blood leaked through her collar and stuck to the hair on her neck.

 _I'm going to die out here and it's all his fault_ , she fumed, suddenly feeling the intense urge to drop him and run for the Temple. But she didn't, and so she trudged even though the snowfall grew thicker and thicker.

She stopped when she couldn't see the Temple anymore. The wind blew around her as if it wanted to crush her within its grasp. If she kept moving forward, she had to reach the mountains soon. They were only a couple hundred feet away. So she plunged forward, trying to shake off the dizzying feeling of walking blind. The feeling overwhelmed her and she stopped again. Her teeth chattered as she took deep breaths to keep the panic at bay.

She closed her eyes, centered herself, reached out for a secure line within the Force. She felt its comforting pressure meet her own energy.

 _I need to find the Temple._

Her eyes still closed, she followed the Force's guidance and turned left. She could see the Temple come closer in her mind. When her hands brushed against something hard, she opened her eyes and saw the frozen-over double doors on the deep blue face of the mountain.

She lowered Kylo Ren on the snowbank so her hands were free. She closed her eyes again and felt the immense weight and strength of the ice that held the doors together. The ice shattered from her intense need for it to be broken, and the steel doors flew open. She dragged Kylo Ren inside and slammed the doors shut again.

In a rush she set up the portable winter tent and dragged a still unconscious Kylo Ren inside it. The walls reflected their body heat and started to warm the frigid air. Rey considered giving Kylo Ren a stimulant so he could take care of his own wounds, until she took a closer look at the deep gashes across his abdomen.

Rey used the stimulant nose spray on herself and shuddered off the oncoming fatigue. She removed Kylo Ren's helmet, revealing the blue-tinged face inside. She patted his clammy cheek, but he didn't respond. He barely breathed, and his pulse was slow. She continued to glance at his face as she used the laser knife to cut his shirt into pieces and removed them. With a sponge rehydrated in antiseptic liquid she cleaned his wounds and sealed them with a sheer layer of skin sealant.

Although the tent had warmed considerably, he was still freezing. Feeling the last effects of the stimulant in her sagging eyelids, she fumbled to cover Kylo Ren with a reflective blanket, followed by an electric blanket. She looked at her communicator that she left on top of the first aid kit. She reached for it, missed, and passed out on the cushioned floor.

 _Rey wandered down the labyrinth of metal walls and scuffed black floors, hearing voices but unable to find them._

 _"Grandfather? Is that really you?"_

 _"Yes. I'm sorry I didn't come to you sooner, but I feared…"_

 _The conversation grew into a louder argument. She recognized the first voice as Kylo Ren. The second softer, sadder, older voice was unfamiliar._

 _"Ben, you still have a choice. It is a hard choice, but you can still make it. Go back to your mother and uncle. They will give you the salvation you need."_

 _"Salvation?"_

 _A third deeper, whispery voice rumbled beneath her feet._

 _"Darth Vader was indeed powerful, but his son Luke softened him, and Darth Vader died as a weak, broken man. Is that how you wish to be remembered?"_

 _"No!" Kylo Ren bellowed. "No, I do not need your pity or your salvation. I will not betray the First Order like you betrayed the Empire."_

 _There was a flash of red light, and then—_

Rey awoke gasping for air. Her left side felt warm from sharing Kylo Ren's blankets, her skin pressing against his. She practically jumped to the opposite side of the tent, but Kylo Ren still slept peacefully. Some color had returned to his face and he was breathing deeper breaths than earlier.

Somehow, she went inside his mind without meaning to and relived a memory with him. Almost. The walls between them were probably a defense he always had up, even when freezing to death. Now the question was if he would remember her intrusion when he woke up.

In a huff Rey picked up the communicator and clicked it on.

"Poe? Poe are you there?" she said in hushed tones.

Silence, and then he answered. "Rey! Are you all right?"

"Yes, just fine. I just wanted to let you know that I'm a safe shelter at the Temple and…"

Her last word hung in the humid air, her eyes tracing the edges of Kylo Ren's face.

"There's a snowstorm going on so I'll probably be here for a while."

"Oh, good," he answered with a sigh of relief. "Thanks for letting me know. I'll let Luke and Finn know too."

"No, not yet. Calling you is probably cheating."

"You won't have to worry about me snitching. Stay safe, all right?"

"Rodger that."

She snapped the communicator shut. Kylo Ren stirred and mumbled something in his sleep. Gingerly Rey lifted the blankets and spied the brightening red of his wounds. In a couple hours, he would need another bandaging.

He awoke just in time for her to clean his wounds.

"This might sting a little," she said and she gently pressed the antibiotic sponge against the raw edge of his wound.

He flinched and curled his fists for a moment, then relaxed. She focused on soaking up the blood and filth.

He cleared his throat and said, "You should have left me to—"

"Shut up."

This made him laugh, and the laugh made him gasp in pain.

"So how is the traitor?" he grumbled.

"Finn's training is coming along fantastically."

"Then why isn't he here with you?"

Finn was crafting his own kyber crystal with Luke, but Kylo Ren didn't need to know that. "Like I said, he's training. What brings you here?"

"You, actually."

Her hand froze on the can of skin sealant.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked tersely.

"Supreme Leader Snoke is interested in your abilities, and wanted me to capture you alive to bring you to him."

"So you came alone?" she smirked.

"I've long since completed my training, Rey. I've been over you even longer."

She sprayed the sealant over his wounds slowly, evenly. Her face still flushed hotly.

"You must still think you can capture me alive if you're telling me all this now."

"I tried to tell you earlier. You should have let me die in the snow."

The brief amount of energy he had petered out and he seemed to fight to keep his eyes open. She tossed a blanket to him and packed up the medical equipment.

"That will have to do for now."

"Why did you save me?"

"I've decided that I'll have you arrested and brought to General Organa."

He clenched his jaw and glowered at her. He must have realized he didn't have the cover of his mask because he tried to turn his whole body away from her.

"Lay on your back," Rey demanded, pushing him back by his bare shoulders, "or you'll open your wounds again."

They looked at each other, their energies pushing against each other to a point of near fusion. Rey felt like she was on fire and needed to be cooled on the cold, hard surface of Kylo Ren's body.

Rey pulled away from him to put the first aid supplies away, breaking the spell.

"What was that?" he asked faintly.

She didn't trust herself to answer, so she started cooking the powdered soup over the portable boiler plate instead. When she had finished, Kylo Ren had already fallen asleep again.

 _AN: Won't be updating until Monday or Tuesday. Have a good weekend!_


	4. Chapter 4

_She was on Ach'to, balancing rocks and holding them in place when she felt a cool breeze on her back. She turned and faced Kylo Ren in simple black robes, looking above her and talking to the air._

 _"That was years ago. She means nothing to me now." He paused, his eyes growing wider and concern creeping over his face. "Supreme Leader, I think it would be pragmatic to bring a troop with us to ensure we capture her…I'm not questioning your judgment. I will do as you ask, and I will bring her back alive."_

 _He lowered his head and spoke to an invisible someone at about his height._

 _"That information is for me alone, captain. If he wanted to assign you to capture her, he would have. Ask him yourself if you don't trust me."_

 _He sank down to his knees as if he was mediating, his eyes unblinking and red._

 _"Leave me alone, Grandfather. I don't need your guidance. I will learn from your failures. I am not weak like you. I will not make the same mistakes as you."_

 _Rey reached out to touch his shoulder and—_

She woke up curled on his arm, her nose buried in his sweaty hair. She swallowed her scream, slowly broke away from his sleeping body, and crawled back to her bed in the opposite corner of the tent.

When she woke up a few hours later, he was already sitting up and doing touch ups on his healing wounds. She tossed him a spare dark brown robe to cover himself with after he complained about needing to go back to his ship for another shirt.

"So when's backup coming?" he asked.

"When the storm's passed."

"It's still going?"

"Ilum's storms can last for weeks, months sometimes. That's why my crew's ship left so quickly."

"But my ship—"

"Will either be lost forever or crushed by the storm," she said with a strained smiled. "I'm surprised you didn't do your research before coming here."

"I wasn't planning on staying here," he said and held out his hand for a moment. "Where's my lightsaber?"

"It's probably in one of those wolf dens and being used as a chew toy now."

He slammed his fist against his knee. "That's my second ship and lightsaber I lost because of you."

"Maybe you shouldn't have tried to go after me a second time."

"It wasn't my idea to go after you a second time."

"Following orders?"

"Yes."

That was true if the dream she had was another memory she was reliving. He still hadn't mentioned about noticing her in his dreams, and she didn't dare say anything about it either.

"Well, you're getting a new set of orders to follow," she said as she fried up two individual portions worth of powdered scrambled eggs and kelp-green slabs of veg-meat. "After we eat, we're packing up and going into the caves. With luck, I'll have my new lightsaber just in time for the storm to end. Here's your breakfast."

He accepted it with a suspicious eye. "You're giving me a full portion?"

"Enjoy it, because it'll be the last we'll be having for a while."

She stabbed at her veg-meat and chewed a salty morsel of it slowly, recalculating the amount of food she had and how to portion it over so many days so neither of them starved. It would be hard, but she had survived near-starvation before. Kylo Ren, however, didn't come off as the kind of person who had to worry about when his next meal would come.

"Thank you," he said before shoveling eggs in his mouth.

In a surprising show of gratitude, he insisted on carrying the backpack down into the caves. Rey rejected the offer at first on account of his wounds, but he argued back that she had carried the backpack and him in a snowstorm after being injured by the wolves. In the end she carried a lantern while Kylo Ren carried the backpack over the reflective blanket he wore like a shawl. They traversed the wide stone hall with icicles that dangled high above their heads.

The cylindrical mouth of the cave was sealed by a frozen waterfall, until Rey used the Force to shatter it. Balmy warm air washed over them as they entered. Rey lifted her lantern to get a better look at the smooth, clearly polished black walls of the cave. As they walked, the swirling sounds of chimes rang in her ears.

"What is that?" she asked.

"The crystals."

They both held their silence as they hiked down the gradual and smooth slope to another opening where soft, rainbow light spilled out into the darkness. They passed through and stopped at the sight before them.

Hundreds of kyber crystals sparkled like stars in a galaxy on the black rock. Even the stream that curled along the cave floor glowed from the golden crystals lining its bottom. Smaller chamber openings on the other side of the stream revealed hints of even more crystals deeper within. Above them the ceiling shimmered from the light of green, blue, red, and even a few purple crystal clusters. Rey switched off the white light of her lantern and walked to a green crystal on the wall. When she tapped it, a high pitch chime rang from it, and a lower hum from above responded.

"It feels like they're talking to each other, doesn't it?" she murmured.

He nodded. The Force was very concentrated here, and the endless conversations the crystals had buzzed through Rey as if she wasn't even there. She walked down towards the stream, careful not to step on any crystals as she did. Even the water was strange here. She could see her tired reflection perfectly in the glittery stream.

 _Her first months living on Jakku were merciless, lonely, and thirsty. In exchange for food and water she cleaned the junk other scavengers found to be traded to Unkar Plutt. She did her work quietly and quickly, and actually earned enough portions to be saved in her clothes. She even made friends with one of the scavengers, who was only a few years older than her._

 _They were friends until the scavenger knocked her out with her short club, and when Rey woke all of her portions had been stolen._

Rey coughed and wheezed as she stared up at the blue crystal ceiling. After a moment she realized she was sopping wet. She sat up and noticed that Kylo Ren was wet too. Her hand jumped to her lightsaber.

"What happened?" she demanded hoarsely.

"You fainted," he panted.

She glanced at the stream and back at him again.

"I think I was having a vision," she said. "I've been having them since I arrived, but not when I was awake."

"It probably has something to do with the crystals. They're so concentrated with energy from the Force that…" he trailed off and his eyes glazed over for a moment, then he rubbed them with a thumb and forefinger. "You need to choose a crystal."

"The crystal chooses me, if I remember how the Gathering trial is supposed to work, so it may be some time before I can leave with one. Did you have to do a Gathering when you trained with Luke?"

He bristled. "Yes, but that was a long time ago. And he came with me too."

"Did he? I wish he was here," she said, shoulders sagging.

"Why isn't he? The Gathering always had a more experienced Jedi to escort initiates."

"Because I thought if children could do this, I could do this easily by myself. That and he's training Finn, and I didn't want to—" she stopped when cool tears pricked at her eyes. She wiped them away and changed the subject. "How did you and Luke choose a crystal?"

Kylo Ren squeezed water out of the damp sleeves of his robe. "He brought me here and my crystal stood out from the rest."

"A red crystal?"

"No, it was green. But when I swore allegiance to the First Order and took my crystal out to build a new lightsaber, the crystal cracked and turned red."

Rey nodded, knowing there was more to the trial but not wanting to delve further. They set up the tent by the main entrance and laid out their beds. Rey's head had started to ache horribly, and it took some tossing and turning before she could finally sleep.

 _She was a child again and holding the wooden staff she found in a collapsed AT-AT. The staff was too long for her to use very well, but so far it was effective at scaring off people who didn't want to fight._

 _She was spelunking in a destroyed freighter when her traitor of a friend approached her. She greeted Rey and Rey hit her across the face with her staff. The older girl collapsed, blood flowing out of her nose and mouth. Rey ran away from the freighter with only a handful of scrap in her pouch._

 _It was impossible to sleep that night. She sucked on her fingers to try and ignore the hunger pangs, and when she closed her eyes she saw the crumpled girl with the blood on her face. With only a couple of hours before dawn, Rey dreamed of an island with no people, not even her family. There was no one there to hurt her, and no one for her to hurt._

Rey's head hurt so badly she wanted to crack her head against the rock just so it would burst open and release the pressure inside. Instead, she searched blindly for the first aid kit for some sort of pain relief. Kylo Ren got to it first, asked what hurt, and handed her the tiny capsule for her to swallow. It wasn't until the cold tingle spread across the back of her neck that she considered that it was not a smart idea to accept medicine from him.

When she woke up again, he had combed his hair and had the cooking supplies set up. Her headache was gone, but her body felt empty.

"If you're awake then I'll make breakfast," he said.

"I'm not hungry," she whispered.

She buried her head in her pillow to hide her tears, even though her loud sniffling gave herself away. Rey never did see that scavenger girl again after that day, and it had been years since she had since thought of her. Now the memory seared her heart like a fresh cut.

"I made tea," he said, and poured the dark green tea in Rey's only tin cup.

Without thinking she took a great, scalding gulp of it and coughed half of it up. He watched her with genuine sympathy.

"Don't look at me like that," she said. "This is all about the trial, right? The crystals are testing me to see if I'm worthy enough to use one of them for my lightsaber. I'll prove my worth."

"I don't doubt that," Kylo Ren said as he gently took the tin cup out of Rey's hand. "However, it will get harder from here. Did you have another vision?"

"More like a memory, from when I was much younger." She rubbed her stinging eyes. "You can have my half portion to eat. I'm going to meditate."

"Don't do that by the stream," he warned with a twitch of a smile.

"I won't," she chuckled and stopped at the tent flap. "I know you're trying to bring me alive to Snoke, but thank you for pulling me out of the water."

He sat up a little straighter as if startled. "You did pull me out of the snow to bring me to the Resistance alive. So we're even now."

Rey rolled her eyes and left the tent. She hopped over the thinnest part of the river and to the wall with five archways the led to more of the precious gems. Rubbing the last of her tears away, she sat down, closed her eyes, and cleared her mind of questions.


	5. Chapter 5

Kylo Ren drained what little of the tea was left in the cup before pouring himself some more. He picked out the vacuum-sealed portion of veg-meat and the packet of dehydrated eggs from the pile, and did his own math. There was at least eight weeks' worth of food for one person. She was planning to still stay at least those eight weeks by halving her portions with him. That didn't necessarily mean he had eight weeks to figure how to get off planet. Everything depended on if and when Rey found her kyber crystal and the weather.

He tore open the top of the egg packet and held it over the frying pan. She said it was all right for him to take her portion, but she hadn't eaten and barely drank. He could already hear her stomach growl in an hour, and he knew she wouldn't complain about it. She'd sip tea and look miserable. With a sigh he tapped out about half of the packet and tightly folded the foil packet closed. Next to the fluffing eggs he laid down his piece and a half of veg-meat.

When his meal was finished, he ate his eggs a puff at a time and chewed on his veg-meat slowly like he had seen Rey do. There wasn't much flavor to savor, but he didn't feel that usual disappointed dip in his stomach when he finished his plate and his tea.

Her communicator's signal was dead, but that was no surprise. Kylo Ren felt as if he was wearing an invisible, noise-cancelling helmet in the cave. He was sure Snoke was trying to contact him but, like the communicator, simply couldn't. It gave Kylo Ren space to think, but he also worried that Snoke would ambush them without warning if he stayed down here with her for too long. He highly doubted that his state-of-the-art ship would be so easily destroyed by the storm. At the very least, the communication system would still be functional. The problem was getting to the ship without freezing to death or being torn apart by the local fauna.

He pressed a hand over his abdomen, where his biggest wounds still felt like they stung from the inside. Plus, he couldn't breathe too deeply without feeling like he was ripping his skin apart. He couldn't risk escape anytime soon. The order to bring Rey with him alive was an even bigger obstacle. The Supreme Leader had given him this assignment specifically because Rey would be alone and unguarded—and yet he still couldn't stop her. He had failed again.

Fuming and his fingers itching to break something, he folded the tin plate in half. Suddenly, he knew what to do. He snatched her communicator and examined it. If he completely destroyed it, she would have no choice _but_ to go to his ship if she wanted off this planet. When would be the right time to do it?

He put the communicator back on the first aid kit and stepped outside the tent to see if Rey was still meditating. She was no where to be seen. His heart raced as he hurried to the edge of the stream, but she wasn't floating face-down in it again.

"Rey?" he called out, and there was no answer.

He hopped over the stream and walked to the smaller cave openings.

 _"Which way do we go, Uncle Luke?" said the voice of his twelve-year-old self._

 _"Wherever the Force pulls you," his younger uncle answered._

Kylo Ren closed his eyes and tried to force the voices out of his mind, but the crystals that still held on to these moments were much, much stronger.

 _"What if I choose the wrong cave and we get lost?" Ben asked, sounding defeated before he had even started._

 _"Getting lost is part of the adventure."_

It was reassuring to him then, but now it felt like a kick in the teeth.

Out of the two caverns right in front of him, he chose to walk down the one on his right. The green stalactites and stalagmites burned brightly for a moment in greeting before dulling again. The smaller, jagged crystals that studded the ceiling sang to him in their shivering, sparkling voices.

 _"Can I bring a crystal for Mother? I think she would like these."_

 _"We came only to gather your crystal, Ben. You can always make her a synthetic one when we return."_

 _"But it wouldn't be the same," he mumbled._

The crystals even repeated the skidding sound of the pebble he kicked out of frustration. His heart sank at the thought of his mother. She was still alive, still leading the Resistance, and no doubt still disappointed with the path he chose.

The slope of the tunnel he currently walked down plateaued into a small dead-end. Here the green crystals grew in thick clusters as thick as his arm. At the far corner where craggly wall and floor met was the small, dark hole of where his crystal had once gleamed so beautifully bright to him.

 _"How do I get it out, uncle?"_

 _"With the Force. In your mind, call out to it. If you are truly ready, it will reach back to you."_

Kylo Ren squatted down and pressed his thumb into the hole. The crystal seemed so much bigger when he was a child.

 _"You did it, Ben!"_

 _"It just…it just flew in my hand."_

 _"Let me see. Ah, that's a pretty good sized stone you got there. I'm proud of you, Ben."_

"What are you doing here?" Rey said from behind him.

He stood up quickly and folded his arms over his chest.

"Looking for you. How did you get here? I was just walking down the tunnel and didn't see you."

"Oh, there's actually a secret passage way between the two tunnels. But why were you looking for me?"

 _"Can I show it to my mother before we put it in the lightsaber?"_

 _"Of course. And I'm sure your father would like to see it too."_

 _"He'll try to pawn it."_

"Kylo Ren!" Rey said, standing almost toe to toe with him now.

He blinked hard and shook his head. "What were you saying?"

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he said sharply.

She furrowed her brow and opened her mouth, but shut it for a moment before speaking again. "Well, I'm going back to the tent."

"Me too."

They were quiet as they hiked up the tunnel, Kylo Ren's mind echoing with past conversations.

" _Actually, do we have to go back? Can't we just train here, uncle?"_

 _"But I thought you were excited to show the crystal to your mother."_

 _"I know, but—"_

Rey nearly jogged to keep up with his longer strides.

"I shouldn't have come here," he grumbled.

"What?"

 _"I don't even know if they'll be there. They fight all the time and—"_

He chewed back his irritation with her, with his assignment, and with this whole damn place. "You know how you've been having visions?"

"Yes."

"I've been hearing the talks my uncle and I had when I came here the first time. I don't see anything, I just hear voices. This tunnel has a lot of strong memories."

 _"We can't stay in here and avoid our troubles forever, Ben."_

 _"I wish we could."_

 _"Well, now that we have the crystal, we can stay here for another night. Maybe two, if the weather holds. What do you think of that?"_

He had reached the river first and hopped over it. The voices silenced themselves, but there was nothing said immediately after Luke offered to stay a couple of extra nights. A young Ben Solo had hugged his uncle tightly, tears in his eyes. Kylo Ren was dry faced as he entered the tent and gestured to the rations.

"I only ate half, so you can have your half," he told her.

"But I told you that—" she stopped herself when her stomach whined, then laughed. "Thank you for thinking ahead."

In between bites Rey explained how she had heard something in the Force call for her in the tunnels, so she followed it but found nothing but the secret passage way. She wouldn't give up looking for her crystal so easily, and he couldn't help but smile at her determination. He decided then to wait until she found her crystal to destroy the communicator.

They went to bed that night as they usually did: with his head and her feet facing the tent doors. His exhaustion allowed him to fall asleep quickly to the rustling of paper from the notebook Rey read from.

 _He was expecting another fight from his deceased grandfather, but he was no longer in his private quarters. Instead, he looked out at the bold blue sea from the bone-white beach. Next to him was the body of a girl he didn't know, with a face masked with blood. Wave after wave rolled over her, but she didn't move an inch forward or backwards on the sand._

 _He turned towards the island that he had seen before. It almost looked like Ach'to with its huge, rocky hills, but the greenery was all wrong. His legs were brushed by ferns while the pine trees gave him shade as he walked up a pathway to the top of the island. Moss velveted piles of rocks on either side of the muddy pathway. Midway in his journey, something tingled on his right arm. He turned to find Rey staring at him._

 _She flinched back, but said, "Can you see me?"_

 _"You're standing right in front of me, Rey."_

 _She grabbed his hand and squeezed it, and he understood. She wasn't a figment of his dream. There was a weight to this Rey, and this island was hers. But he had felt her presence in earlier dreams, and never seen her._

 _"I don't know how I do it, but I visited your other dreams before," she answered him. "Your hand feels cold."_

He woke up with Rey's face inches away from his own. She lifted her head up off of his arm, and he sat up to massage the blood back into his hand. Rey turned on the small lantern that hung above them and cast a warm yellow glow on their face. He couldn't read Rey's face at all, but her pulling at the ends of her beige tunic gave away her anxiety.

"So you visited my dreams before now," he said lightly.

"Not on purpose," she said quickly. "And by the time I realized what I was doing, I would wake up. You didn't seem to notice me, anyway."

"What did you see?"

"I didn't see a lot. It was a lot of walking down empty hallways and hearing you argue."

"With who?"

"With other soldiers. With Snoke." Her voice grew softer. "With your grandfather."

"Darth Vader was not who I expected when I finally met him." He looked down at his hand and flexed it. "He's nothing but a quivering old man talking nonsense. Luke told me about their final encounter. Luke was going to kill him, right in front of the Emperor. But instead he held back, and my grandfather sacrificed himself to save Luke. I didn't think it would change him that much. I still thought he would be Darth Vader."

Kylo Ren realized too late what came tumbling out of his mouth, because Rey was staring at him and seemed unsure about how to address his outburst.

"I don't know why I told you that," he mumbled. "You wouldn't understand that kind of disappointment."

"I understand being disappointed," she said quietly. "My family sold me on Jakku when I was a very young child. I thought they were punishing me for something I did at first, but after a while I convinced myself that they were doing it for my safety, that they were secret heroes in the war, or were being held prisoner somewhere. Always, I thought they would come back for me." Her voice hitched in her throat. "I had to accept that weren't coming back. I didn't want to believe that. I wanted to believe that they still wanted me."

Rey fell silent, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

"I guess I really don't understand _your_ kind of disappointment."

Her parents abandoning her wasn't new to him. He had glimpsed it in her mind when he had first interrogated her. To listen to her tell the story herself…how had she not turned to the dark side? With a family that abandoned her, with having to learn how to survive at such a young age—what drove her to the light? Did she not crave revenge on all those who had wronged her? He could feel her anger from where he sat, the tears in her eyes, the flush in her face. She wanted to explode in that moment.

She closed her eyes, her tears rolling down her cheeks, and let out a shuddering breath. The anger dissipated, mostly. Her sudden glare cut into his heart. She wiped her tears away and buried herself back under her blankets, her head to the ten flap this time.

"I'm sorry," he said, though it was suddenly very hard for him to breathe.

"Just turn off the light," she told him between sniffles.

He did. Instead of going back into his bed, he crawled out with one of his blankets to lay on a few feet away. Even the murmur of the stream couldn't fully mask her crying. He stared up at the twinkling blue crystals, hoping for sleep that wouldn't come. So he waited until her cries stopped before entering the tent again. Her blanket laid crumpled at her feet, and she slept with her knees tight against her chest. He pulled the blanket over her before laying down with his back turned to her.

 _Kylo Ren sat in the dark of his bedroom, the only light coming from the blue glow of the ghost of his exasperated grandfather._

 _"Ben, you still have a choice. It is a hard choice, but you can still make it. Go back to your mother and uncle. They will give you the salvation you need."_

 _Before, Kylo Ren had spat the word 'salvation' back at his grandfather._

 _"I can't go back to my mother and uncle."_

 _"Why?"_

 _Answers he would have been content before now felt petty and small. His grandfather shrank into the form of Luke, but the Luke who had first brought him to the caves._

 _"We can't stay in here and avoid our troubles forever, Ben."_

 _He knew that, but he wasn't avoiding trouble. He was followed by it every minute he stayed in these caves, and maybe it was time to finally face it before he had to rejoin the world again._


	6. Chapter 6

Rey left the tent while Kylo Ren still slept for the next couple of days to explore the other tunnels. On the first day she could do nothing but fume about his arrogance from the previous night. When her anger started to fizzle, she remembered how she _didn't_ have to save him from the snow and could have just let him freeze to death, and got angry about him again. After hours of cyclical frustration, she headed back to the tent irritated at herself for wasting time and not really looking for her crystal. They didn't speak to each other until Rey picked up her plate and noticed something odd about it.

"Why is there a big dent in my plate?" she demanded.

"I folded it in half."

She gaped at his stony face. "Why would you…you know what, I don't care. You can eat off of it."

She shoved it in his hands and scooped up her meal on her other plate before eating it outside of the tent. She didn't have to share her food either. She could have let him starve. He apologized for the plate when she re-entered but she didn't answer him, instead opening one of the Jedi tomes she had brought to read. Now and then she glanced at the communicator, but she left it untouched. For now.

The next morning she left the tunnels again, her anger mostly settled in her bones like dust. She looked at the caverns, cleared her mind, and felt into the Force for even a whisper of her crystal. She followed a twinge down a winding path spiked with purple gemstones.

 _She was a child again, cleaning nuts and bolts with the scavenger girl when they were still friends._

 _"I can't wait to get off this rock," the scavenger girl said. "Next ship that comes, I'm gonna get myself hired on. Maybe get you hired on too."_

 _"I can't. My parents," Rey muttered._

 _"Right, your folks. I'm sure when they come back they'll probably have all sorts of treasure and food and stuff."_

 _"I just hope they come back soon."_

 _"They will. When I get off world, I'll make them come back for you."_

 _She sounded so sure of this fact that Rey fully believed her, and thanked her in advance. When a new ship landed, the scavenger girl went to talk to the off-worlders. She came back to the marketplace bruised and with a black eye._

 _"Nothin' happened, Rey. Stop worrying," she told Rey before knocking her out with the short club._

Rey woke up crumpled on the rock floor, blood globing on her eyebrow. Gingerly she sat up and touched the stinging cut on her forehead. She traced the blood back to a sharp corner of a crystal growing out the ground. Were these damn visions trying to kill her now?

She stumbled back up the way she came. By the time she reached the tent, the bleeding had stopped and was sticky on her brow.

"What happened?" Kylo Ren asked as she cleaned her forehead with a sponge from the first aid kit.

"I had another vision of..." She looked away from him. He didn't need to know nor did he care what her visions were about. "I had another vision, I fainted and hit a crystal."

"Maybe I should accompany you so if you have another—"

"I don't need your help."

She could feel his glower on the side of her face, but he didn't argue. After she sealed her wound she made their rations (with polystarch instead of eggs) so they could eat it in stifling silence. She looked down at her plate and silently cursed herself for gobbling her ration down, but then Kylo Ren slipped his plate with a full piece of veg-meat and a half of his half of the polystarch.

"No, this is yours," she said, trying to give it back.

"And I'm giving it to you," he said, pushing the plates back with his thumb. "You need it more than I do."

She feared for a moment that he had read her thoughts on letting him starve, but she ignored it. They hadn't shared dreams in the last couple of nights, and she hadn't felt him trying to invade her mind at all ever since they landed on Ilum.

"Thank you," she said, and forced herself to eat slower this time.

He nodded and made himself tea to sip on while he nibbled on his bread. Even though it was only a little extra food, Rey already felt more energized than she had in the past week. Her mind felt clearer, lighter, faster. She thought back at her visions, and tried to understand why she had become so focused on this scavenger girl from long ago. Her eyes fell on Kylo Ren holding her tin cup.

"Do you want to know what my visions are about?" Rey asked him.

He blinked at her. "If you want to tell me about them."

"They're about when I was first left behind on Jakku." She saw his face flinch, but she continued. "I was only five or six, and I didn't talk to anyone at first. There was an older girl who was friendly with everyone at the outpost. She would sit with me and talk we me, and we became friends. She said she would even bring my parents back to me, and I believed her. I've been having visions of when she betrayed me. She had knocked me out and stole my portions. I saw her again a few weeks later on a scavenge, and I hit her in the face with my staff before she even spoke more than a word. She fell and I ran and I never saw her again.

"I don't know why I'm having these visions of her, or how they're going to help me find my crystal. I felt guilty about possibly killing her when I was a child but she…she had betrayed me and left me to die. I couldn't trust her again."

He folded his hands in his lap and spoke slowly, "Maybe she's a warning."

Rey nodded, looking carefully at his somber face. Somehow throughout the course of the week, she had felt a tendril of connection with him that was bruised from his earlier insult. She remembered him laying motionless in the snow, and then the scavenger girl fallen in the sand.

Suddenly, everything snapped into place.

"When the storm passes, you can either come with me to the Resistance, or return to the First Order on your own," she said, which made him nearly drop his tea.

"What do you mean?" he said, his eyes searching her face.

"When I decided to carry you to the temple with me, it wasn't because I wanted to take you back as a prisoner to the Resistance. I didn't want to leave you to die by yourself."

She flushed and looked away from him for a moment.

"That doesn't explain why you're letting me go," he said quietly.

"I'm letting you go because I think you're right. The visions are a warning to not repeat a past mistake."

"I thought you said she couldn't be trusted again."

"I couldn't trust her again. I don't trust you either," she said, her voice starting to shake, "but Luke has shown me the value of compassion, even in the face of enemies. If I hadn't killed my once-friend, we wouldn't have been friends again, but she could have had the chance to be a better person if she were alive."

"Or she could have been far worse, and stole from you again. Possibly kill you."

"Yes, but I ended all of possibility for her to change when I killed her."

They fell silent for a while, until Kylo Ren let out a short sigh.

"I won't take you to the First Order."

Now it was her turn to eye him with a glint of suspicion. "Really? I thought it was your assignment to capture me."

"Consider it payment for saving my life when you didn't have to," he said gruffly. "I'll stay in the cave when the Resistance picks you up, and I'll hail down the First Order once you're out of orbit. No one will know what happened here."

It didn't surprise Rey that he wouldn't even consider coming to the Resistance, but she did like the idea of no one knowing about their cohabitation. Kylo Ren poured himself a new cup of tea and raised it.

"To no one ever finding out about this," he said, sipped it and handed it to Rey.

"To going our separate ways peacefully," she said before sipping the pungent black tea.

Now all Rey could do was hope that he would keep his end of the bargain and not prove her interpretation of her visions wrong. If not, well, she always had Luke's lightsaber holstered at her side.


	7. Chapter 7

A few things changed for them over the next few days. They had to move their camp deeper into the tunnels that wove themselves into a natural labyrinth. Even though Rey told him that she didn't trust Kylo Ren, she still felt a flicker of faith in his word to not bring her to the First Order. He often offered to cook and carry the backpack further down the caves where the crystal clusters were as tall as her knees. He even opened up a little more on his past when asked.

"How long did it take for you to find you crystal with Luke?" she asked during one of their descents in a tunnel wide enough for them to stand shoulder to shoulder.

"Only a few hours."

She stopped in her tracks. " _Only?_ Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"I don't understand it. You were trained by Luke Skywalker, you found your crystal in only a few hours—why did you turn to the dark side in the first place?"

"Snoke reached out to me, made me an offer as an apprentice, and I accepted."

"But _why_ though? What is it about the dark side of the Force that's so appealing?"

He rolled his tongue in his mouth as if weighing his next words. "Answer a question of mine first, and I think that will help answer yours."

"All right."

"Your life on Jakku restricted in many ways, correct? Couldn't leave the planet, couldn't trust the other citizens in case they tried to steal from you, couldn't do much except scavenge in order to survive. So when you were given the choice between the light and the dark sides of the Force, you chose the side where you continue to constrict yourself. No attachments, no emotion, just order. Why would you choose that sort of life?"

Rey pursed her lips a moment. "When I started training with Luke, for the first time I felt like I was doing something with my life. And we don't leave all emotion behind. There's still compassion and empathy for others."

"Those are actions, not emotions."

"And you've only given me questions, not answers."

A smile flickered across his face. "I don't remember exactly why. I was angry and Luke told me to let go of my anger, but I couldn't. Snoke told me to embrace it, to embrace my destiny as Darth Vader's successor. I succeeded him when I killed Han."

His eyes glazed over, his face grim. Rey tried to swallow the hot welt growing in her throat, and they remained silent until they were both exhausted and set up the tent. However, he left the tent to meditate a few feet down the tunnel. She peeked from her tent as he sat bow-legged and closed his eyes as she did when she meditated, but the air around him grew humid with hatred. The humidity lasted for a few minutes before chilling into what she guessed was fear. She realized her consciousness was reaching out to him and she pulled all the way back into herself.

An hour later he returned to the tent, sweating and spent. They both had full portions that night. After all, if it only took him a few hours to find his crystal, surely it wouldn't take her that much longer to find hers.

Two and half weeks of searching the tunnels for crystals that grew sparser and sparser finally broke Rey's optimism.

"I'm never going to find it," she said as she sat down on the hard stone.

"Don't say that just yet. Yours is probably somewhere deep," he said as he sat down next to her and looked down the steep barrel of the tunnel ahead of them. "Very, very deep."

"It's been weeks. Yours took only hours."

"Rey, you aren't me."

"Thanks," she scoffed.

"What I mean is—look, we're completely different. The Force has been strong within my family for generations. I used it since I could walk, and my first teacher was Luke Skywalker. I found my crystal easily because everything came to me easily."

He held her gaze with his own, even though it was hard to see him through the film of tears over her eyes.

"Luke trains me now, and it hasn't made any difference."

"There is a huge difference. You survived Jakku. You survived Starkiller Base. You found your power when I was at the end of my training with Luke, and you've grown even stronger since then. When you find your crystal, it will be the rarest to be found only because someone like you was persistent enough to find it."

She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, genuinely touched by his words. He leaned away from her, looking taken aback at himself. She took a deep breath, let out out slowly, and felt a bit better about her predicament. Or at least, she could think much more clearly about it.

"I must be missing something, though," she said. "Luke told me to reach out with the Force, and my crystal would respond. I'm stretching my consciousness as far as it can reach, but nothing."

She looked up at the shining blue crystals that dotted the smooth black roof of the tunnel. The light that contrasted with the dark. Were there crystals hidden within the rock? She stood up at ran her fingers over the bald, black stone on the nearest wall.

"I've been relying on the light side of the Force this whole time," she murmured, feeling hesitant about what she might need to do.

She turned when she heard Kylo Ren stand. He stood up straighter and didn't wince now that his wounds were mostly healed. His brown eyes practically glittered between his long scar.

"You can always try the dark side of the Force," he said.

She couldn't help but smile. "You're tempting me."

"Maybe."

He joined her at the wall and spread his hand next to hers.

"I can teach you the basics."

She bit her lips together, her stomach starting to hurt.

"What are you afraid of?" he asked gently.

She glared up at him. "What sort of Jedi am I if I could only find my crystal by using the dark side of the Force?"

"A unique one."

She chuckled at that and rested her forehead on the warm rock. Her thoughts went to Finn, and how his training was going with Luke. Finn would truly be the last Jedi. Her? Maybe she would be the first to use the dark side of the Force without completely submitting to it, but to do so would mean she couldn't be completely in the light anymore. She needed be squarely between the two. The blue gems above them hummed safely from the support of the silent rock. Balance between the light and the dark achieved naturally.

Balance could be possible within herself. She had seen it in her meditations with Luke at the beginning of that training, but later on she would see only the light. She couldn't just simply _try_ to gain equilibrium: she had to trust herself to accomplish it.

"Train me," she told him, pushing herself off the rock with a new rush of energy. "But just until I can find my crystal. Just the basics, as you said."

"I can do that," he said, smiling at her.

"Good. Let's get started."


	8. Chapter 8

"I know I haven't been exactly straightforward with what turned me to the dark side," Kylo Ren said. "But maybe I can show you. Luke taught you how to use the Force to influence minds, yes?"

"Yes."

"Has he taught you how to go inside another's mind?"

"Luke and I could telepathically communicate, but other than that, no."

"We should probably sit down for this."

She trembled when it registered about what he wanted to do. They sat down bow-legged across each other. He offered his hand she took it. He posed her fingers across his right temple and let go of it.

"Keep your eyes on me," he said, "You want to know why I turned to the dark side?"

"Yes," she said faintly. She didn't know if she was ready to dive into his mind willingly, but she didn't have time to second-guess now.

"Focus on that question, and don't stop looking until you find it. I'll lead you to the answer you want. It'll be easy."

"If you say so. Ready?"

"Yes."

 _She gingerly entered his mind, visualized as the metal hallways she had seen in his dreams. Immediately she felt his pull down the hallway and to ignore what was going on behind the walls. Out of curiosity she touched a wall, but her fingers went through it. Moments from what she guessed was his childhood flickered passed her. He was always well-dressed, always well fed, and almost always alone. The memories slowed down to one, where a teenaged Ben Solo ignored his mother calling him down because there was 'someone to see him.' He knew it was his father._

 _He jumped to his feet when his mother burst into his bedroom and demanded that he came down. In a huff he followed his mother to the living room lighted by the cylindrical chandelier. His father was already lounging in his favorite chair, his greasy boots on the coffee table. Leia looked sharply at Ben, feeling her son's bubbling irritation that Han was clearly oblivious too._

 _Rey was pushed away from the memory and pulled along the hallway again. She focused on her question again, and was bombarded with shattered fragments of memories of his parents, of training with Luke, of standing among but never with the fledging Jedi order. Her heart raced with his growing unease of his place within the Jedi as he struggled to control his flaring temper. She stopped and touched the door in front of her, and was overwhelmed with rage._

 _"Why didn't you tell me about Darth Vader?" Ben Solo shouted at Luke, his voice booming within the tall, cold metal halls of the new Jedi temple. "Why did you hide it from me?"_

 _"Your mother and I thought it was best to wait until we thought you were ready."_

 _Rey felt a cold shock run down her spine._

 _"Mother knew? Did my father know too?"_

 _"Yes. But Ben, you must understand something about your grandfather—"_

 _"You never told me. None of you told me until the whole galaxy found out."_

 _The scene muddied and cleared in a busy cantina where Ben sulked in a dark corner with a thumb-sized green glowing drink. Of course no one told him about Darth Vader. They must have thought him too weak to absorb such a truth. But his mother…his mother had the same Force sensitivity that he had, and she didn't tell him. She didn't trust him enough to tell him the truth._

 _A black cloaked figured approached him, mumbling under his oversized hood. The hair on the back of Ben and Rey's necks stood up on edge. This was clearly a dark Force user, and Ben put a hand over his light saber hidden under his robes._

 _"You are Ben Solo, are you not?" the figure croaked._

 _Ben didn't say a word, but the figure chuckled as if his silence was affirmation._

 _"I was initially surprised to find a Jedi of your caliber in a Rancor pit such as this, but after I learned of your lineage, I can understand the need to drown one's shame."_

 _"I'm not ashamed," Ben shot back, his neck feeling hot. "My grandfather sacrificed himself to save my uncle."_

 _"True. But what is your grandfather remembered for? He was a terror during the Galactic Civil War. He was the very shadow of death, and one of the greatest warriors to use the dark side of the Force."_

 _Ben squeezed his glass until he heard it crack, and the glowing drink dripped between his fingers. He knew he should ignore the man and just leave, but something held him back._

 _"If you think you can goad me into turning to the dark side, you've gravely underestimated your target."_

 _The figure smiled. "I agree, young Jedi. You have the potential to be stronger than Darth Vader, but alas…you are chained by family obligations and content with standing in the shadow of Luke Skywalker."_

 _Ben wanted to throw his glass down and bring out his light saber, but couldn't. His entire body was held in an invisible grip, and the old man had not even lifted a finger. Not even Luke could do that._

 _"I believe you are greater, Ben Solo," the old man whispered in his mind, "but you must be willing to allow yourself to break free in order to achieve your maximum potential. Your family knows this potential well. Why else would they hide your heritage from you?"_

Her forehead pushed onto his, both of her hands clutching his face and scalp. She opened her eyes and backed away, stuttering apologies.

"No, it's fine. You just have to be more careful of losing yourself in the other person's mind. But do you understand the pull of the dark side?"

"Yes, but it's not just the dark side. It's Snoke. I've known men like him before. He's using you—"

He stood up a little too quickly as he told her flatly, "That's the end of the lesson today. We'll start meditation tomorrow."

Rey didn't argue with him, as she was still shaken by the experience. She understood much more clearly now that Snoke had taken his chance with Kylo Ren when he was vulnerable, and that chance paid off. Was Kylo Ren hoping to seduce her to the dark side in the same way?

She sat in her meditative pose and pulled away from everything, breathing deeply and evenly. She had asked Kylo Ren to show her his turn to the dark side, and he did so. If she kept her vigilance against the techniques that she saw Snoke use on Kylo Ren, she should be able to learn the ways of the dark side of the Force without bending a knee to it.

The next day they meditated on Rey's emotions. Kylo Ren would ask her questions to provoke a strong reaction out of her, and she had to sit with that emotion and feed it.

"We'll start off easy," he said with a smirk. "How do you feel about me?"

She knew he was expecting "hatred" or at the very least "angry," but she needed to be honest if she expected to advance in her training.

"I don't know," she said, trying to swallow down the flutter in her throat.

He blinked a few times before finally saying, "How do you not know?"

"It's…look, I'm not upset with you at the moment and it doesn't make sense for a student to be angry at their teacher anyway. Let's try something else."

They moved on to figuring out what made Rey angry and to sit on that. Rey tried, but her concentration was often interrupted by the shivering fear coming from Kylo Ren.

Over the next few days Kylo Ren did his best to explain what drove dark force users. Fear, anger, and hatred were preferred emotions to use because they were generally the easiest for those who just began learning. But other emotions could tap into the various powers of the dark side: greed, lust, passion. While light users abstained from mortal desires, dark users relished them. These desires gave dark users the strength, focus, and determination to use their unfathomable power.

What Kylo Ren didn't tell her, but she noticed just from knowing him, was how destructive this power could be. As she looked for the desire that would unlock her path into the dark side, she remained cautious and her attempts at using it were weak.

"You're afraid of failing, aren't you?" he asked her in the middle of one meditation session.

"Yes, of course I am."

"Sit with that. Imagine not finding your crystal. What would you do?"

"Make a synthetic one, I suppose."

Just saying that left a bitter taste in her mouth. Of course she couldn't just make a synthetic crystal after wasting all this time and energy and food in her search. If she did that, every time she would look at her lightsaber she would be reminded of her failure. Luke would be kind to her, but out of pity, and that would make her failure sting all the worse.

 _No,_ she cried to herself, _No, I can't let that happen. Where are you? I need to find you, I can't fail!_

Something broke in her chest, and frantic energy flooded out of her and washed over and through the cave walls. A small chime rang from deep within the caverns and struck her heart. She stumbled as she stood up, hands outstretched in search of that same chime again. Kylo Ren approached her, and she held on to him like an anchor.

"Rey," he said as he shook her shoulder.

"Hrmm," she grunted. He never told her how exhausting using the dark side would be.

For a moment she thought she was floating, but her brain put together that her legs gave out and Kylo Ren was carrying her to the tent. He laid her down and pulled the covered over her. She grabbed his wrist with weak fingers.

"I felt it." Her words slurred in her mouth. "My crystal. It's hidden, but I can find it now."

"We'll look for it after you've rested," he murmured.

His warm hand clasped her cold one, and it felt nice. She was glad she had saved him from the snow, glad that she hadn't told Poe about him, glad he was here to help her navigate these strange caves. She didn't want him to let go her hand, and maybe he could sense that too, because he didn't let go until she lost consciousness again.


	9. Chapter 9

_Warm seawater curled over her toes. Past the white water Kylo Ren stood with his head barely breaking the surface. Rey called out to him, and to her surprise he tried to swim towards shore, but the waves kept pushing him under. She swam to him and clung on to him tightly in the churning water until they were both spat out on the shore. He spread out on the dull sand, Rey's white-robed legs twisted over his like a mermaid's tail._

 _Even though it was_ him _and not a figment of her dream, she brushed strands of hair away from his face and traced part of his scar with her thumb. His black-swathed chest heaved under her other palm._

Rey forced herself to open her eyes and got out of the tent. She paced in a slow circle, rubbing her face with her knuckles. This had to be the work of the dark side, mixing up her emotions and making her _feel_ —she couldn't even think it. This was Ach'to all over again.

She sat down to meditate, pulling away from all living things except the one thing that connected them all: the Force. Nothing mattered but the light of the Force that guided her and kept her above all things crude and material. She reached up higher and higher, but could not quite reach up all the way because she was being pulled down by the shadows that framed the light. Her fingers remembered the touch of his skin, and she squeezed her fists to focus, but it was too late. Blood rushed from her head to her heart and she could almost smell the light musk of his scent when he carried her to the tent. Lightheaded, she folded over her knees and counted to ten.

She thought of what she had read and what Kylo Ren told her about the dark side: these emotions were overwhelmingly powerful. She accepted that, but she still yearned the light for perspective. Her feelings may be strong, but she couldn't let her crush on him possibly jeopardize everything she had worked for. So she made a deal within herself: she accepted this crush and her feelings, but would leave it all behind in the caves.

No one would ever know about her secret, especially not Kylo Ren.

Within hours Rey felt closer to finding her crystal than ever when she used the Force to break part of the tunnel wall. The rock crumbled before them, revealing a secret passage that devoured what little light entered it, including the light from the lamp Rey held out.

"Do you feel it too?" Rey whispered, her mouth suddenly dry.

"Yes."

Something very old and evil lurked within, as well as her whimpering cry of her crystal. Kylo Ren put a hand on her shoulder, and Rey realized she had been shivering.

"I had been so afraid of what would happen if I didn't find my crystal that I didn't think—" she babbled, then took a deep breath. She held out Luke's lightsaber and turned it on, the blue light burning strong against the darkness. "Let's go."

Kylo Ren walked right behind her as she led them down the gradual slope of the narrow tunnel, the light barely piercing the darkness. Rey's focus on the path ahead was pecked at by the nagging thought that he hadn't mentioned anything at all about their shared dream, but those worries disappeared when the tunnel walls widened into a massive cavern. The whole room was lit up by the gleam of built up clusters of dark purple and blue crystals that flowered from the concave ceiling. Much of the floor space was taken up by a lake of black water as smooth as glass that did not reflect the light from above.

The light in her lamp flicked back to life, and Rey turned off her lightsaber. She felt a creeping sense of dread as she approached the lake.

"It's down there," she said, her crystal's song ringing in her ears as she walked along the bank, her hand over the water's surface. "I can feel it. It's so close."

"Call it to you with the Force," he said after he dropped their gear. "It should fly right into your hand."

"That's what I'm doing, and it's not…it's not working."

Rey kicked a pebble into the water and waited for the ripples to clear off the surface. The water was strange, but everything about these caves were strange. She kicked off her leather shoes and dipped a toe in the water. The lake was cold, but not unbearably so.

"You're not going to go swimming, are you?" Kylo Ren asked.

Rey took off her lightsaber holster and piled it with her shoes. "I've learned how to swim since Ach'to. I'm just going to take a quick look to see where it is, then go from there. Can you set up the tent?"

"I should go with you."

Her heart banged against her ribs, but she quickly told him, "No, I'll be fine. I won't be in there for more than a couple of minutes. There's no sense for you getting soaked too if I won't be in long."

Kylo Ren clenched his jaw for a moment, but he didn't argue. Rey took several deep breaths before wading into the cold water, the mud flowing between her toes like silk. Instantly she felt her crystal's warmth radiate throughout the chill of the water. Once she had to tread water, she took a deep breath and dove down.

A pinprick of pale yellow light stood out amongst the pitch blackness. She kicked as hard as she could to the rocky lake bottom. The light grew brighter between the claw-like rock formation that trapped her crystal. She tried to get the crystal to break free and come into her hand, but it wouldn't budge. Desperately she grappled the edges of the stone and commanded them to break. The floor trembled as she pulled the stone apart just enough for her to grab the crystal.

The crystal flew into her hand and buried itself in her palm. She admired it for a moment, then tried to take a breath but inhaled water instead. In her panic she tried to swim up but all was black and there was no up and she all should do was flounder and not know if the darkness before her was from the lake or if she had passed out, until she felt something grab her by the middle and pull her.

Rey coughed up water when she surfaced, and her arms flailed until she hooked them around Kylo Ren's shoulders. She shut her eyes and laid her dizzy head on his chest, where his heart thumped in time with her wheezing. She let her legs float above his as he treaded water.

"That was longer than a couple of minutes," Kylo Ren panted, and the cavern echoed with their laughter.

When she finally caught her breath, Rey lifted her head and moved her left hand between them.

"Look," she said, opening her hand to show him the crystal.

He smiled at her treasure, the crystal's light brightening his face.

"It suits you," he said, looking at her with warm eyes.

She tightened her grip on his shoulder. His hand pressed against her back, securing her to him. His legs brushed against hers as they floated like two lilies in the lake. Rey curled her fingers around her crystal, but the light never left his face as he leaned in and kissed her.

Her mouth stung as if she had been shocked when he broke away. The color drained from his face as he murmured, "Rey I haven't…I haven't been completely honest with you."

"Neither have I," she said, and brushed the hair away from his eyes, curved his cheek with her finger tips, and traced the bottom of his scar with her thumb. He looked at her as if she had enchanted him, and she felt a smile coming on.

She wove her fingers in his hair and pulled him to her. She kissed harder than he had, riding on a new wave of energy that coursed through her veins. He grabbed her with both hands and they submerged. They surfaced sputtering and laughing as they swam to the bank, barely out of the water when he cradled her with one arm and kissed her again. She curled up in his lap, her hand holding the crystal joining his.

Kylo Ren kissed her hair and pressed his cheek against it. Rey breathed in his scent, listening to his pulse in his neck. And so they embraced each other as long as they could, blissfully and eagerly forgetting the universe around them.


	10. Chapter 10

They hiked back up through the labyrinth of tunnels to the first cave they had first entered at the beginning of Rey's quest. Slowly and in between spur-of-the-moment kisses they set up the tent and the small forge to begin crafting her lightsaber. However, as soon as the blankets were laid down they clung to each other as if it was their last moment together.

Rey never imagined letting another strip her robe off and massage her breast with his thumb and forefinger. She never thought she'd feel safe with another on top of her, kissing her throat. But she moaned as she felt herself open up to him, and she folded her legs over his back and tried to pry his pants off with her toes. He pushed himself up and gazed down at her, panting.

"Do you want to do this?" he asked.

She nodded even though the thought of sex made her both nervous and excited, but she caught the doubt in his eyes.

"I'm ready, I want this," she breathed. "Don't you?"

There it was again, the doubt but his face had become like stone. Rey unwrapped her legs and pushed herself up by her elbows.

"It's okay, we don't need to rush," she said and kissed his cheek.

"I want you, I just don't…" he said and swallowed hard. "I don't know. I panicked."

"It's okay. We have time, there's no rush."

"No, there isn't any time."

Kylo Ren rolled next to her, and they both laid down on the blankets. Rey took his hand and cradled it in hers.

"We can't stay here forever, Rey," he whispered.

"I know," she said, and kissed his rough knuckles. "I don't want to leave here without you."

He wiped her tears away and combed her hair with his free hand.

"I don't either," he said.

Rey had looked forward to crafting her lightsaber for so long, but now every piece she welded together felt like a cruel countdown to when they would have to leave. She felt miserable even though they agreed to each have full portions of their rations. Sometimes she could only stomach half portions. Kylo Ren tried to comfort her, but this made her want to stay with him more. It felt horrendous that she would have so little time with the first person she felt so truly open with.

For the mean time, however, she would weld as Kylo Ren read from the tome she had brought with her from Ach'to.

"Did you read this about the Jedi and Sith being just Jedi?" he asked Rey as she add the finishing touches to the metal chamber that would hold her crystal.

"Yes. Isn't it strange how the Jedi were once fine with tapping into one's emotions when connecting with the Force?"

He lowered the book. "Then why did they separate?"

"It's not in that tome, but eventually the council decided that Jedi must completely dedicated themselves to the Force and let go of all mortal attachments. Not everyone agreed, and they formed into the Sith."

He snorted out a laugh, and looked back down at the book and carefully turned the pages. Rey slid her darkened googles and turned on the small torch to weld two delicate figments together on the flat top of the forge. Putting the lightsaber together brought her back to her days on Jakku, when she would clean or mangle tools together. The menial work always calmed her, as if the nervous half of brain was so focused on making sure she didn't burn her fingers off that the other half was free to meditate. She pulled away from everything so she could look at it all from a new angle.

As a result, after they had eaten and cuddled each other under the blankets, Rey decided to propose her idea.

"When my lightsaber's finished, instead of going our separate ways, let's leave together," she whispered in his ear.

He sat straight up, as if she had poked him with an electric prod. "And go where?"

"The Resistance. Together."

"We can't."

"Why?" she demanded and sat up.

"If we go to the Resistance, I'll be killed."

"No, you won't. Not if you give us everything about the First Order. You'll be imprisoned, but I'll fight as hard as I can so you won't be executed. Your mother will help."

"My mother won't spare me."

"She's the general!"

He looked at her with sad, tired eyes. "Her title would be in jeopardy if she spared my life."

Rey tightened her fists. "That isn't true, and you know it. She won't say it out loud but when she talked to me about you…she still loves you, Kylo."

He pursed his lips for a moment before speaking again. "Even if we weren't going to the Resistance, I can't leave my master."

Her heart sank at those words, but she refused to give up. "Is that why you're still with the First Order? Because of Snoke?"

"You're with the Resistance because of Luke."

"No, not just Luke. For Finn and Poe and General Organa and the fight for a galaxy where people choose their leaders instead of being fearful of a tyrant. Do you truly believe in what the First Order fights for, or are you with them because of the power they've given you?"

He was at a loss for words for a moment, but then he said, "It's true that the First Order gave me power that the Resistance wouldn't have. But you don't understand, Rey, I _can't_ leave my master. There's a bond between us that can't be broken."

"So what happens if you return to the First Order without me? Will he kill you?"

"No, if he wanted to kill me he would have when I came back from Ach'to. I'm not sure what he'll do, but I know that the punishment will be severe."

She shuddered as she remembered his memory of meeting Snoke. Rey threw her arms around his middle, and he embraced her.

"Even if I did go to the Resistance, he would never leave me," he muttered in her hair.

She cried in his dark brown robes and felt ashamed of her tears. This was her fault for giving in and letting herself fall in love with him. If she had kept her emotions at bay, her heart wouldn't be breaking as it did now. Kylo lifted her face with a hand and kissed her tears away. She nuzzled his hand on her cheek, fresh tears rolling on his fingers. He inhaled a deep, shaking breath before speaking again.

"I think there is another way, but I need you to trust me."


	11. Chapter 11

In her windowless, blue-walled conference room, General Leia Organa listened patiently to Poe's broken-hearted tale of following the signal of Rey's communicator to the landing area of Ilum, only to find it hidden within her gear. Fearing that Rey had been in danger and left a call for help on her communicator, Poe and his crew listened to it immediately.

"She betrayed us, general," Poe said, his voice cracking. "She abandoned us for the First Order."

Luke and Finn, who sat next to her with half-empty plates on the glass table top, were speechless. Leia instructed Poe to set the cylindrical, scuffed device down and play her message. Poe obeyed, and a miniature hologram of Rey hovered above the lit screen.

"Master Luke, it took a while, but I found my crystal and have crafted my first lightsaber. I wish I could return to show it to you, but I can't." She folded her arms behind her back. "I was only able to find my crystal because Kylo Ren followed me to the temple. He showed me the power of the dark side, and with that power I was able to find my crystal. I understand now that the dark side of the Force is clearly stronger than the light, and I've accepted Kylo Ren's offer to be his apprentice and to join the First Order."

"Rey, no," Finn said under his breath.

Rey turned around as if someone called her, and then she faced them all again.

"I hope you will forgive me, but I understand if you don't. May our paths never cross again."

The hologram dissolved away. Leia picked up the communicator, and looked at her solemn-faced brother with a smile.

"She really is your student, Luke. Such a terrible liar."

She could feel the men's stares on her as she examined the communicator more closely. Sure enough, there was a loose nail on the bottom of the device that connected the shell to the computer within. After she had Finn practice his Force skills by prying the shell apart, Luke picked up the folded piece of paper that fell out. He unfolded it, revealing a side with the old Jedi symbol on one side and print on the other. Luke was silent as he read, then chuckled and handed it to Leia.

"What does it say?" Finn asked.

Leia squinted as she read the shaky handwriting in between the lines of print, then shot out a sigh and closed her eyes.

"Did Rey lie about joining the First Order?" Poe asked eagerly, leaning on the table.

"No, she's going to the First Order with Kylo Ren," she said as she slid the note to the center of the table. "They're going to assassinate Snoke."

Poe joined Finn's side as they both clawed for Rey's note and deciphered it as quickly as they could:

 _Ben and I are going to his base._

 _We will end his master._

 _Do_ _not_ _come after me._

 _May the Force be with you._

Leia shook her head at the boys' gasping and theorizing at how this could have happened and what they could do to help Rey.

"Here we go again," she said, though more to herself and her memory of Han than anyone else.

 _TO BE CONTINUED_

 _WINTER 2017/18_


End file.
